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Dessert

Cosmopolitan Cake

A layered cake with sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg whites, baking powder, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, citron, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Cosmopolitan Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

  6. Divide the batter into three jelly tins.

  7. To the remaining batter, add allspice, cinnamon, cloves, citron, and raisins.

  8. Pour this mixture into two jelly pans.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake all layers until a toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Once cooled, layer the cakes with frosting, alternating dark and light.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and traps air when creamed with sugar.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add structure and lift to the batter as they set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat, making the layers rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Baking until a toothpick comes out clean. Thin jelly-tin layers bake quickly, and leaving them in the oven too long drives off moisture, making the cake dry and crumbly. Testing with a toothpick catches the point where the centre is set but still moist.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, allspice, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, egg, allspice, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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